International Airport to Use Location-based Analytics for Faster Customer Check-in

Challenge

Recognizing the growing importance to provide a positive customer experience as a way to differentiate itself and remain competitive, an international airport was looking to get travelers through TSA lines faster and offer services, such as free, more reliable Wi-Fi, to improve customer satisfaction and enable travelers to spend more time in airport concessionaires.

Focusing on customer satisfaction meant evaluating new approaches to mobility, big data and software development. With WWT’s expertise across these and other areas, the airport turned to us for help in realizing a better customer experience.

Solution

The first step was collection of traveler movement and delay patterns across the airport — from time spent getting to a TSA checkpoint, getting through security, movement inside the terminal, to even time spent on underground trains moving travelers between terminals.

This was accomplished through the deployment of a Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) solution to analyze traveler traffic patterns via their mobile devices connected to airport Wi-Fi. This helped collect data on traveler line wait times and behavior after getting through security before boarding.

The solution builds on the Cisco Wi-Fi network, which in this case, deployed Cisco AP3702 access points and Cisco 8510 Wireless Controllers to give customers a reliable, fast and easy-to-access Wi-Fi experience. The Cisco Wi-Fi network is location-enabled. Travelers connecting to the Wi-Fi can be located by the Wi-Fi signals on their smartphones and mobile devices, enabling the collection of important data about how long they spend in particular areas of the airport; where they move to and from; as well as other metrics. The heart of the CMX system is the Cisco Mobility Services Engine (MSE), which is the data collection and analytics platform to store and view the analytics the airport is interested in measuring.

Impressed with the capabilities of CMX, the airport is now partnering with Cisco and WWT to take part in a next-generation CMX beta program.

Conclusion

Not only does the airport now have an immense amount of traveler data available to them, they also have a mobility and wireless solution in place for the manageable collection of data, which translates to an added value for TSA, travelers and the airport. TSA is able to use airport data to measure traveler wait times and customer flows; travelers get free access to reliable high speed Wi-Fi, as well as the added convenience of shorter wait times; and the airport now has an end-to-end understanding of their travelers’ experiences.

The airport is now better positioned to capitalize on improved traveler convenience and optimized wait and boarding times, allowing travelers more time to spend at concessionaires.

The WWT Big Data Team is working with the airport to come up with new ways of using location data provided by CMX to pass onto vendors. To complement this shift toward traveler buying behavior, the airport has also met with WWT Asynchrony Labs to discuss how it could potentially design airport applications to push relevant deals to travelers when in the airport.

With an emphasis on the customer experience, travelers, the airport, TSA and concessionaires all stand to benefit in new ways.